


stay.

by ArcadeGhostAdventurer



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Dystopia, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:50:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7448431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcadeGhostAdventurer/pseuds/ArcadeGhostAdventurer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new take on a heart breaking end. Alternate ending of "and remember me tonight (when you're asleep)" by bulletthestars. </p><p>“it's the end of the world, but kimi races on, with nico by his side.” this time, they survive.</p><p>Posted on LJ. Edited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stay.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bulletthestars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulletthestars/gifts).



> Bringing the dead art of songfic back to life. This was first published in 2014, but then things happened and I deleted my F1 fics on ao3. Still, I loved writing this story and after some more editing I wanted to post it again, because I really miss seeing it on my works page.
> 
> This is a fanfic of a fanfic, more of an alternate ending actually, for the amazing F1-AU story "and remember me tonight (when you're asleep)" by bulletthestars You should read the original story first to be able to get a grip of the things so I'm giving you the link for the original story, or else this will not make much sense to you. Inspired by Rihanna's song "Stay", and the song lyrics belong to their respectful owners.

[and remember me tonight (when you're asleep) by bulletthestars](http://archiveofourown.org/works/688050#main)

 

[Stay.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8BRvqGCNs)

[...Oh baby you're falling apart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUFO4KqPXWU)

[Falling in love while I'm breaking your heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUFO4KqPXWU)

[Oh can't you take this crazy love darling...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUFO4KqPXWU)

The next race doesn’t start well. Nico feels drowsy from time to time. There is a pounding in his head. Twists and turns are everywhere and the road is wet with the blood of Infecteds and even though they stay out of Nico’s sight for the most of the race, they still manage to cause problems on the way. The road is filled with body parts, at some point, they are pushed out of the asphalt and into the rocky banks. Still, it’s good they don't really come around because Nico is hardly in the state to shoot them down. Somehow, they finish fifth. There is a concert after the race, a dude with a boy band-ish face and a young girl with thin voice. They do not stay to listen.

It’s been about a month since Nico was almost bitten, (almost but enough), and Kimi can see him fading. He is trying to make Nico drink as much blood as he can but it’s leaving him weak. The worse thing is, doesn't really seem to be helping Nico anymore. The only constant seems to be the pharmacies in the towns they are staying until whenever is the next race, buying iron tablets and vitamins for himself. Chemical smell and the vague feeling of “they know, they know why you need this much iron tablets”.

There is a guy in front of the counter, talking fast and hushed on the phone, and extending a crumpled paper to the salesgirl. She comes back with an arm load of IV kits and various vial boxes. He pays it all cash, the girl doesn’t count it, and goes away in a hurry filling the medication into his backpack. Their eyes lock for a second as he goes. It leaves Kimi with a nagging feeling that he has seen him before. But he can’t dwell on it, he hates leaving Nico alone in the hotel room.

His second encounter with the man happens like this.

They go out for a walk after dinner. Nico isn’t looking as drained as he did in the last couple of days and the weather is nice. Kimi thinks he could use some fresh air and Nico, against the constant sinking in his stomach, agrees.

Nico, indeed, starts to feel drowsy after walking two blocks down the hotel. He doesn’t say anything, they are arm to arm and Kimi feels too good to let go, so warm and solid with almost no space between them. And it’s comforting, just the two of them. And merely walking in the empty sidewalks, with no aim of going anywhere in particular, somehow feels… Normal. As if they are an ordinary couple in an ordinary world. A world that is not falling apart, and they will spend their peaceful time together on it; not until the world ends but until a peaceful death finds them, maybe in their sleep. But the sinking gets worse and after taking a couple steps more, he just sinks down to the side walk, head swimming.

Kimi goes down with him. Seeing Nico like that; clammy with cold sweat, shivering on the ground with no ways to help kills him. He presses his forehead to Nico’s. He feels foolish for hoping. With a deep breath he sneaks his arm under his knees. Just when he is about to hoist Nico off of the ground, he hears the squeak of tires behind him, and the distant sound of a pistol being cocked.

“Hey! You’re okay? Man, is he drunk?!”

And that is how he finds himself sitting in the warm basement of a suburban house with a cup of tea in his hands. Nico is lying beside him with an IV on his arm. His clothes are off, in the washing machine upstairs (a washing machine, he repeats to himself, he feels like laughing, hysterical) and the blanket is pullet up to his neck, leaving his arm out only. Kimi caresses his hair and face occasionally. He thinks about his weird fate, thanks silently in the back of his mind to the high power, god, deity, whatever was that made this man show up right beside them in the night, out of blue.

Well, three times. Kimi has seen him three times. Third time is the charm, they say. He believes that now.

The man, Ed, is absentmindedly going through a thick medical dictionary, on a tiny chair across the room. His long legs stick out, giving his slouched form a cartoonish air. Kimi now knows where he has seen him before. That concert after the race they finished fifth, he was on the stage. He looks less like a boy band member now, awake at the wee hours of the morning in ill-fitting clothes.

He brought them in, past midnight, calling out to his sister to get a low pH serum ready. A round faced girl with long, bright red hair. While looking for a vein in Nico’s arm, she told Kimi it would be alright. That they were in good hands now. There is another guy in the basement, more of a young kid in another bed. He’s all up. He says his parents will come and pick him up in the afternoon. HE smiles up at Kimi, telling he was probably in worse shape when he was brought here, that his friend would survive.

Friend. His heart aches.

The first day of his waiting nears to an end. Kimi doesn’t give up his spot beside the bed, in case Nico wakes up. Ed says no though, that the sedatives are too strong for him to. They keep him sleeping, so that his body does not waste any energy and can focus on creating healthy blood cells instead. Catherine comes to check up on them periodically, changes the serum when it’s finished and brings Kimi something to eat once in a while. They offered him a room upstairs but he couldn’t stand the idea of leaving Nico. Not now, not when he is like this.

Kimi gathers their story in time from what they tell in the passing. Their parents were both very highly regarded chemists, though lost to the infection while trying to find a cure. They carried on with the project but by the time the ‘cure’ was polished enough, the Infecteds were already a part of the regular life, the entertainment business. Like the races. It’s ironic that Kimi and Nico are earning a living from the thing that bounds the cure to this basement. Into the small house of two siblings who sing outdated pop songs at bars and local functions as a cover up business. That Nico’s life depends on it.

It’s the third day of waiting. Nico feels warmer now, the color of his skin is resurfacing. Kimi starts discovering the house bit by bit. Catherine and Ed don’t have much furniture but almost every flat surface is already covered with books about anything and everything, note sheets and musical instruments that there is really no place for anything else. Ed laughs as he says that they can’t even play any of the strings but they didn’t want them to rot in abandoned buildings so they brought them in too. There is a Steinway & Sons piano in the middle of the living room, salvaged from an old concert hall in the town. He hears them playing in the evenings, working on new songs. Kimi closes his eyes, listening to the smooth piano, one hand in Nico’s hair.

Nico wakes up to find himself in a place he doesn’t recognize, half naked; with a little, round band-aid inside his elbow. His arm aches. So does his lower back. He tries to get up, panicking but he loses his balance and falls. There is footsteps coming from outside, then the door opens. Seeing Kimi come to his side does little to his nerves. Last thing he remembers is nothing but a blur of lights. A shiver runs down his body. Kimi pulls him up and puts him back to the bed, kissing him harshly for once with all the love he has for the man, then pushing his hair back. His hands roam his face, shoulders, arms…

“What’s... Where are we?” Nico tries to swallow, his mouth feels like sandpaper. A young woman comes in, hands him a glass of water. Smiles. He drinks it all without questioning.

They move upstairs. Ed and Catherine are quite well known in the town for their singing but it seems like no one seeks them out here. And the people coming for medication do it mostly at night. What they’re doing is illegal, Kimi knows but then again, the definition of legal nowadays is more than a bit vague. There is a man, who gets into contact with people who need the meds. Kimi doesn’t know his name and most probably, it’s better that way. Nico’s on his feet now, though he gets tired easily. He’s getting bored in the bed, so he goes up into the kitchen, stealing carrot slices or uncooked pasta under the ruse of helping while Kimi and Ed are in the garage, working on their race car.

Ed is able to help Kimi do some improvements on their radar and Catherine is able to do some improvements on Nico. For weeks and then for months they keep saying they will leave but find themselves wound up back at the house after races. Kimi knows, when Ed took them in, he didn’t plan on befriending two stray racers, neither Kimi thought him and Nico would get addicted to the homemade pasta sauces so quickly. But it works for them all somehow. Ed’s cigarettes burn every single rug. Catherine wakes at night and putters through the kitchen drops at least a pan or a lid and wakes the whole house. Nico and Kimi demolish an entire wall of the garage while trying out the new rear-view cameras. And they laugh. And they live.

They are cuddling in the backyard, on a garden swing, Nico and Kimi, sunken into the soft cushions. The last lights of sun gets blocked by the buildings. Night falls around them. Fall is early this year, thinks Nico. It’s good for them, driving under the sun is not fun. And rain makes the races more unpredictable. It sparks that little something in him that first pulled him to Kimi. He pulls the throw blanket from the armrest, putting it around both of them. The corners of his lips go upward a little bit when Kimi curls further into his side, bodies touching almost at every point possible. Never admitting vocally that he enjoys this as much as Nico. But he knows. He basks in Kimi’s body heat. All he wants to do now is to take Kimi to their room, push him to the bed, rip his clothes off and skip the dinner but Catherine is making chocolate cake and Kimi loves it when it’s still warm. So he closes his eyes, waiting.

They have a race, a race with a big prize money tomorrow but this is a night of celebration for them. Catherine announces that after two more set of IV, for caution, Nico’s blood will be cleaned all the way through. She kisses them both wetly on the cheek. Nico blushes faintly, smiling; Kimi swats her, trying to look angry as he wipes his cheek, though his lips curve slightly later on. They eat grilled chicken and pasta. Ed lights a cigarette while arguing with Kimi about how to use the homemade heat sensor that allows them to 'see' at night races and how to benefit from the data. Catherine pours some of her beer on the burning tip of his cigarette, and some on his jeans while at it. Nico falls of his chair while laughing, watching two of them throw each other whatever they can and Kimi guesses, home must be a place you can dirty your clothes just for the sake of it and still find a clean one to change in. His hand caress Nico’s back under his hoodie, his laughter stops suddenly on an inhale, as they go to their room, neither of the siblings look their way.

While fucking Nico, slow and deep, skin on skin touching from head to toe, Kimi thinks what would have happened if Ed didn’t see them, or if they didn’t go out to walk at all in the first place. He shudders, pushing himself deeper and deeper into Nico, leaving wet kisses all over his face while Nico’s hands are all over him, palms sweaty, trying to memorize every curve of his body with his fingertips. He tastes chocolate in his mouth, tongue delving into Nico’s mouth. Looking at him right in the eye, while that familiar heat coils in his stomach, he tries to make him see everything he’s afraid to say out loud. Beautiful, he wants to say, you’re beautiful. You’re everything. I don’t know what I would do without you. Now, you’re everything. Please don’t ever go.

They win the race. The new gearbox is like a fresh breath of air and Nico is warm and lively next to him. And they win, Kimi even smiles a little bit, when they’re handed the trophy. They see Catherine talking to the guy that came the second, a young kid with wavy, dirty blond hair and plump lips. Ed comes to congratulate, quickly gravitates towards the grid girls in shiny suits.

Catherine runs off with the blond guy and Nico wants to go to a club so they go. It’s not Kimi’s style really, but he doesn’t miss the opportunity of using club’s packed up dancefloor for his own benefits under the dim strobe lights and Nico doesn’t complaining. Though he remembers, that only a couple months ago, he was in a club similar to this, but discards that thought quickly while winding Kimi’s arm around his waist from behind. The two occasions cannot be compared. He throws his head back onto Kimi’s shoulder and the lyrics tell him; “Don’t think, just let it go.”

They are in a bar downtown, it’s quite crowded, reminding Kimi and Nico that they are living with the most famous siblings in this town. The only attraction is the race that comes around periodically. Some of the girls are looking at their way, whispering and giggling. But none of them really dares to come closer to ask if they are really the race winners of the past week. The bar is waiting for the performance to start, and the girls go wild when Ed takes his place behind the piano, hair horribly gelled into that boy band style again. Catherine sits on a high bar stool. It seems like she’s looking at their vague direction while introducing a song called “Stay”, but Nico can’t be sure.

 

All along it was a fever

A cold sweat hot-headed believer

I threw my hands in the air and said, "Show me something,"

He said, "If you dare come a little closer."

 

Kimi takes a swig of his beer, it’s darker in the bar now, with only the stage’s warm spotlights on. From the side of his eye, he catches Nico looking at him with an expression that he can’t place. He tries to look away. But he can’t. Just like he placed himself into his life, Nico holds his eyes regardless of his will.

 

Not really sure how to feel about it.

Something in the way you move.

Makes me feel like I can't live without you.

It takes me all the way.

I want you to stay.

 

Kimi feels something cave in inside him. He reaches for Nico’s hand slowly, grasping it tightly, as if to make sure that he’s really there. Nico’s hands are not small and he grasps with a strength he didn’t have in months. It feels like there is something stuck in his throat, he can’t swallow it down.

 

It's not much of a life you're living.

It's not just something you take – it's given.

Round and around and around and around we go.

Oh now tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know.

 

Nico can’t take his eyes off of Kimi’s. He knows. He remembers, just months ago, the pathetic thing he called life, in an underground facility. He knows the emptiness, the ambiguity. Not knowing, never knowing. But now he knows, this is living. With the ups, with the downs, with the one you love. With the one who cares. And he wouldn’t imagine, ever, that he’d end up content.  

 

Oh the reason I hold on,

Oh ‘cause I need this hole gone.

Funny you're the broken one,

But I'm the only one who needed saving.

Cause when you never see the light,

It's hard to know which one of us is caving.

 

Kimi knows now. Nico has never been a replacement for anything, nor for anyone. Even when Kimi was missing a piece. He doesn’t feel like that now. Empty. Nico hadn’t fit that hole. That was something different. But looking at himself now, he’s at peace with the ones he lost. It was hard to accept it at the beginning, hard to comprehend this new feeling, but when Nico too was gone, Kimi realized, it wouldn’t do dwelling on the past he now can’t change. He’s got Nico now. And things hurt less and less.

Ed and Catherine sing a couple more songs but they do not stay to listen. They know all of them, they also know that the two won’t care. They rent a hotel room, just like they did before, way before all of this happened. Nico locks the door while Kimi kisses his neck, fumbling with his shirt, and he laughs.

Kimi’s got him stilled under his weight, sucking bruises into his neck while Nico’s blunt nails leave red marks on his back. They move in unison through the night; hard first, fast, then slow, then slower. Sweat covers them both; the sheets are soaked by the morning. They do not leave the room. They do not leave the bed. The room is hot with their breath and smells of sex. They check out at noon leaving a wreckage behind.

They are in the car, going down an empty highway, to a new town, for a new race. Kimi’s eyes are on the road. The road is endless, Nico knows. Fields stretch on both sides, all alike but pretty in the last warm days of the year. But this time, it’s different. They are going, knowing that they have somewhere to go back. People to visit on holidays, call once in a while, a steady place to stay off-season. A place some would call home, but it’s more. It’s a hope, and a reassurance. Sometimes it’s the homemade pesto, sometimes the soft pillows that smell of cheap lavender. A bed they can call their own. A backyard that reminds them good memories. A porch that they can make more.

This time it’s not vague. They have a starting point, an anchor and going further is effortless.


End file.
